


Five Times Liam Gets in a Physical Fight Over his Bandmates

by aguantare



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character(s), Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguantare/pseuds/aguantare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt at the <a href="http://badjujuboo.livejournal.com/386715.html">liam!fest</a> over at LJ. Five times Liam gets in a physical fight over his bandmates (and one time they get in a brawl over something said about him). Combination of canon and AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Liam Gets in a Physical Fight Over his Bandmates

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me

1\. They're at a club, and they've got a booth up in the balcony. Liam's standing at the railing, looking down over the dance floor and bar, Zayn and Niall tucked into the booth behind him, content to nurse their drinks and chat. Louis is down on the dance floor, but Liam can tell by the smile on his face that tonight is just a night for fun, nothing more. Harry is at the bar, turning on the charm on some girl in a pink shimmery top, and Liam smiles a little because the press make out like Harry is always trying to pick up girls just so he can get laid, but really Harry mostly just likes the lighthearted conversation and making girls laugh.

His smile fades a little when he tags on to a dark-haired guy in a white t-shirt making a beeline for where Harry and the girl are sitting. He straightens a little when he sees the guy push himself aggressively into the space between Harry and the girl. 

And then the bastard is backing Harry up against the bar, one large hand fisted in his collar, and Liam is running. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, spills at least three people's drinks and hears someone yell "fuck you" over the music, but he doesn't even care. By the time he gets to the bar, a couple security guys are already there and there's a scuffle going on and he can just barely see Harry tangled up in the middle of the knot of limbs and bodies. People are shouting, a glass breaks on the floor, and Liam dives into the fray, careless of his own safety. He gets an errant elbow across the cheek and then someone steps on his foot and he almost loses his balance, catches a fleeting glimpse of Harry, arms around his chest, trying to pull him out of the mix.

And then he regains his balance, looks up, and finds himself face to face with the guy in the white t-shirt. There's absolutely no mistaking him, and Liam doesn't even think about it, just reels back and slugs the guy in the face. He doesn't know if he gets him the mouth or the nose, but he sees him fall, and then someone, one of the security guys, is grabbing him in a bear hug and hauling him away. 

Paul tears him a new one, and the media are going to have a fucking field day with it, and he knows he'll be lucky to escape without an assault charge.

But Harry comes to his hotel room later that night with a bag of ice for his knuckles, and he looks kind of tired and still a little shaken up and Liam kind of hates the fact that this is what being friendly and open has gotten him this time around.

"Thanks," he says quietly, setting the ice on Liam's hand, "You didn't have to."

Liam looks at him for a second or two, flexing his hand a little and feeling the sparks of discomfort that promise an aching, purple bruise by tomorrow. 

"Of course I did."

\---

2\. Liam is kind of ashamed that he didn't know about Lottie earlier. The whole time they were touring and becoming international superstars, Lottie was quietly climbing the ranks at Doncaster Belles, quietly making a name for herself in her own right. She's 19 now, all lean muscle and sinew; graceful, imperious going forward, gritty and intense tracking back. Liam glances sideways at Louis as Lottie slices through the Arsenal's defense and cuts a shot inches wide, and there's this quiet pride on his face that Liam isn't sure he's ever seen before. 

"She's really good," Liam says. 

"Yeah," Louis replies, "Yeah, she is."

The stadium is sparsely occupied, so when Lottie intercepts an errant back pass from the Arsenal sweeper and floats a delicate chip over the keeper's head, the applause echoes a little hollowly in the over-large space. 

It also makes the hollered insult from a few rows up impossible not to hear. Louis stiffens, whips his head around to look, and there are a couple guys their age standing up, hands cupped over their mouths. One of them takes a deep breath.

"Dyke!"

Louis flinches, like the word physically hurts, and then he's on his feet, going for the stairs before Liam can stop him. He takes them two at a time, gets up to where the other guys are, and he shoves at the one who just insulted his sister, says something Liam can't hear. The guy sneers, shoves Louis so hard he falls back into the aisle, and Liam is up the stairs in a flash, gets there just as the guy is crouching over Louis, vaguely predatory.

"So you're her fag brother, huh?" he hisses, derisive, "Guess it runs in the family or something." 

Liam actually sees red. He lands one punch on the side of the guy's head, gets two more in before the guy manages to hit him back, and he feels his upper lip split but it doesn't hurt. He throws two more punches in quick succession, both of which would have made his boxing instructors back home proud, and the guy sort of staggers back, hand over his nose. Judging by the amount of blood, it's probably broken. His friend is just standing there, looking kind of stunned, and Liam's still angry enough that he's tempted to punch him just for good measure. He's about two seconds away from doing it when Louis grabs his shoulder.

"Come on, Li. Let 'em go, they're not worth it."

Liam half expects to get stopped by the police on the way out, and he can already see the ludicrous headlines--One Direction's Liam Payne: Ladies' Football Hooligan. Not that he's not used to it, nor does he really care. He'll deal with it. He's old enough now to be secure in his actions. 

He doesn't regret it.

Louis is quiet on the drive back to his mom's place, and for once, Liam isn't quite sure what to make of his silence. He wonders if maybe Louis is angry at him for getting involved, for not letting him fight his own fight, as it were. 

They pull into the driveway, and Louis shuts the car off, just sits there for a second, looking straight ahead.

"You know," he says eventually, looking sideways, "I don't think I've ever had someone throw a punch for me." 

Liam shrugs a little, looks down at his hands. 

"Seemed like the appropriate thing to do, given the circumstances."

Pause. Then Louis chuckles a little.

"Lottie's going to be delighted," he says, "She's always had a crush on you."

Liam laughs lightly, relieved. 

Another pause. 

Louis reaches over, grasps Liam's wrist, squeezes hard.

"I'm. Just so you know. I feel really lucky. To have you as a friend."

\---

3\. The thing is, most strikers in the league know better than to tangle with Niall. Three seasons ago, when Niall was still new to the Premier League, Stoke's strikers all "accidentally" clattered into him chasing after loose balls within the first twenty minutes of play. Niall responded by going up and pulling in a curling cross from the left, coming down with the ball safely in his arms, and making like a brick wall when a Stoke player tried to run him down. The Stoke player went off with a concussion, and no one got anywhere near him the rest of the match. 

Hull are new to the Premier League though, and the newly promoted teams are always the scrappiest, the most willing to run through the back of your legs to get to the ball and maybe warn you at the same time. At one level, Liam respects it, because he thinks the Premier League is losing that edge, that roughness around the edges that marked it as the working class sport it used to be. 

When he's left picking himself up after another crunching tackle that knocked him clear over the touchline, though, he's not as big of a fan.

And when Hull's #9 slides studs up right into Niall's mid-section well after Niall's got the ball in his possession, he's had enough. He grabs #9 - Jones, Johnson, whatever the hell his name is - and pushes him back, away from where he was leaning over Niall, telling him to get up, stop faking. 

"You do that again, I'll break your fucking legs," Liam says. He doesn't do the whole finger-in-the-face thing, because that's for when he wants to be patronizing, or condescending. And he's actually deadly fucking serious right now.

"Grow some balls and maybe I'd believe you," the striker retorts. He jabs a forearm into Liam's chest and Liam grabs it, shoves it away. 

"Do that again, I fucking dare you," he growls. The ref is trying to get between them now, and the crowd is jeering, whistling, but Liam barely notices any of it. He sees the blur of movement, feels the blow fall across the left side of face, and it's only through supreme self control that he manages not to swing back. He fists his hands in the striker's jersey instead, shoves him so hard that he loses his balance and falls, and then Liam's teammates are there, pulling him away, and he sees the red card being brandished in his direction and he doesn't even fucking care. 

The gaffer sort of half-heartedly chews him out the next day, mostly just to cover his own ass. It's kind of an unspoken rule that when someone goes after your keeper, all bets are off, and the manager knows that Liam and Niall came up through the Academy together. Just before he leaves, the manager tells him,

"Someday you'll make a hell of a captain, Payne."

Liam goes home and finds Niall sitting on his doorstep, a couple paper bags surrounding him. When Liam gets closer, he realizes that whatever is inside smells absolutely heavenly. Niall grins at the look on his face, stands up. 

"You just got yourself red-carded on my behalf," he says, "Thought the least I could do was bring you dinner." 

Liam laughs a little, because leave it to Niall to think that he needs to repay him in any way shape or form for what he'd done. He wants to tell him he'd do it all over again in a heartbeat, because Niall is his keeper, Niall is his teammate, Niall is his friend and any one of those reasons is more than reason enough.

But instead he just pushes affectionately at the back of Niall's head, tells him, 

"I knew there was a reason you were my favorite."

The way Niall smiles at him, a little too soft around the edges for a grin, makes him think maybe he gets it anyway.

\---

4\. The hell of it is, Liam isn't actually looking for Zayn. The club is getting too crowded, too close, and Liam mostly just wants some air. He knows Zayn isn't in their booth, but that doesn't really mean anything. He goes downstairs, heads for the back of the club, gives one of his bodyguards a nod on the way out. 

It's like a bad movie, the way he steps out into the alley, and Zayn is lying at his feet, blood on his face, two guys standing over him. Liam supposes he should be shocked, but the only thought that jumps to forefront of his mind is that neither of the guys look particularly hard or menacing and he's actually pretty damn sure he can take both of them on. 

"What the hell," he says, and it's not a question. Zayn looks up at him and he looks as scared as Liam has ever seen, and it just sears into him, the knowledge of what these guys have done to one of his best friends. 

"You know this raghead?" the taller of the two sneers, and his tone is so derisive that Liam thinks for the first time in his life that he actually hates someone. 

"Why don't you fuck off," he responds. The shorter guy approaches him then, makes a show of stepping over Zayn's prone form as he does so. He gets right up in Liam's face, and Liam can smell the alcohol on his breath.

"Want to say that again?" 

Liam knows exactly where this is going, and he has absolutely no intention of shying away from it.

"Fuck. Off," he repeats, deliberately. The punch flies in fast, but Liam is faster. He dodges the fist with inches to spare, and swings a vicious right hook back, hears the sickening clack of the other man's jaw. It doesn't give him satisfaction, exactly, but he does feel relieved when the two guys decide he's not worth screwing with and take off down the alley. 

Zayn's propped himself up on one elbow by now, and he's wiping at his split upper lip with the back of his hand. Liam crouches down next to him, bats his hand away and pulls the edge of his own sleeve over his thumb, dabs at the ooze of blood on Zayn's upper lip. 

"Cut it out," Zayn mutters, "That'll stain, you know."

"I'll use stain remover," Liam replies. He holds out a hand, and Zayn takes it, lets Liam pull him to his feet. He winces a little as he does so, and Liam feels a little sick because it's obviously not just the split lip that Zayn's sustained. The adrenaline is bleeding off now, the rush of fight-or-flight, and it's making him a little shaky.

"How long were you out here?" he asks as Zayn brushes off his jacket and jeans, swipes again at his bleeding lip. 

"Don't know. Came out for a smoke. Guys caught me off guard." Zayn isn't looking at him as he talks, but Liam can hear the slight tremor in his voice that belies his ostensibly calm facade. He reaches out, puts a hand on Zayn's shoulder until he straightens up and looks at him. His eyes are kind of wide and maybe a little watery. 

"Hey." Liam puts his other hand on his other shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Zayn takes a deep breath, gaze sliding away for a second before coming back to Liam's.

"Yeah," he says, "I am now."

Liam worries his lower lip between his teeth.

"Okay," he says eventually, "Head back in?" 

Zayn hesitates for a second. Then he's wrapping an arm around Liam's waist, turning his face into Liam's shoulder.

"Thanks, Liam."

Liam swallows over the sudden lump in his throat, curls a hand at the back of Zayn's neck. 

"Yeah," he replies, clears his throat. "Yeah. Any time."

\---

5\. When people talk shit about them, it's usually from behind the relative safety and anonymity of a computer screen. On the rare occasions that Liam actually reads any of it, he has to go sit and stew in a corner for awhile or maybe escape to the gym and take his anger out on some poor helpless punching bag.

In some ways, it's better when someone insults them to their faces, because they can respond, or at least have the satisfaction of seeing their security guys haul the person away.

But in another way, Liam thinks, it's worse, because if someone has the balls to insult them face to face, they probably mean it.

They're all kind off today, tired from a long few days on the road, homesick and stretched thin, and even though they're grateful for the fans, Liam can tell by the other boys' expressions that facing the crowd outside whatever radio station they just stopped by is about the last thing they want to do right now. 

"Just five minutes boys," he tells them, "Smile. Think happy thoughts." They give him grateful smiles, although Harry's is closer to a grimace, and they step out into the wall of noise, step towards the crowd-control barriers, take the first pens they see. Liam signs a few posters, smiles for a few pictures, and then relief because Paul's tapping on the shoulder.

He's halfway to the van, a few feet behind Louis and Zayn when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. Something flies through the air, and then Louis is staggering a little, something slimy and red-orange splattered along the right side of his body. Paul is looking around, shouting at one of the other security guys, but Liam's already tagged onto the group of boys, no older than himself, clustered just at the edge of the last barrier. They throw another rotten tomato, and this one is accompanied by a, "This is what we think of your 'singing'" as it spatters messily over Zayn's jeans. Paul is still looking, but Liam's already moving. The boys see him coming and one of them takes aim, but Liam gets there before he can even get his arm back to throw, reaches over the barrier toward him and grabs a fistful of shirt, yanks hard so the kid stumbles forward against the barrier. One of the other boys tries to get him in a headlock and Liam almost smirks because nice fucking try, kid, you've clearly never been in a scrap before. He twists around, jabs the kid sharply just under the breastbone and he lets go instantly, making winded noises. Hurts like a bitch, Liam thinks viciously, but no lasting damage. 

He's still got his hand in the shirt of one of the other ones, and Paul is there now, yelling at him to let go, yelling for the rest of the security guys. He knows Paul is stronger than he is, will have him hauled off and stuffed in the van in a few moments. So he settles for yanking on the kid's shirt again, hard, and then he's being pried off, dragged away, all but thrown into the van and they're speeding away.

For a few seconds, the boys just stare at him. Liam's still kind of furious, and he's not really in the mood for their wide eyes at the moment.

"What?" he snaps finally. They kind of blink and look at each other. 

"It was only tomatoes," Niall ventures, after a couple seconds. 

"This time," Liam retorts roughly, pulling at the hems of his sleeves, fidgety and restless from the excess adrenaline, "Maybe next time it'll be bottles. Or bricks."

Silence. 

Liam huffs out a sharp breath, turns his gaze to the window, his chest tight. He wishes they would just fucking _get_ it, that he's _been_ there, he's been on the receiving end of insults and taunts and people telling him he was nothing, and no one ever stood up for him, but now the boys, they've given him so much, they've given him everything, and this is the way he knows how to repay them, by being there for them, by not letting other people hurt them. 

Louis chuckles suddenly, breaking the charged quiet in the car. Liam glances sharply at him, but Louis just rolls his eyes, reaches out with a foot and pokes Liam's knee. 

"Have we mentioned how lucky we are to have you around?" he asks. He's grinning, easy and wide, but his voice is kind of quiet, like maybe he understands more than Liam realized. Liam feels his cheeks flush a little, and the tightness in his chest is relaxing.

"Flattery won't get me to do your laundry, if that's what you're after," he deadpans. Louis laughs out loud, and the tension is broken. Zayn leans over the back of the seat, tugs at one of the drawstrings on Harry's hoodie.

"How about sexual favors?" he offers, trying to poke the end of the drawstring in Harry's ear until Harry bats him away.

"Zayn!" Niall gasps, sounding scandalized, "I thought I was your one and only!" 

"Yeah, but laundry," Zayn groans, like the mere thought of it pains him. 

Liam rolls his eyes, leans back in his seat and just lets the banter wash over him, wash out the thoughts of what happened. He knows he's going to end up doing Louis and Zayn's laundry anyway, if only because he doesn't want their tomato-stained clothes to be stinking up their tour bus for the next week and a half. He won't tell them that, of course. But he knows he'd do just about anything for them, for all of them.

And maybe, he realizes, maybe they know that too. 

\---

+1 

Liam always says he can get them tickets, not even box tickets, but proper tickets, down in the stands with the true fans. They've gone a few times, and they all enjoy it, but sometimes they just prefer to go to the pub after a long week at work and classes and just have a few beers and watch the game on TV. Liam gets it, understands probably better than any of them the need to not be in the thick of things all the time. 

Not that watching on TV makes Zayn any less anxious or nervous. It's not that he thinks that Liam's going to screw up or anything. He just really, really wants Liam to do well every single time he steps out on the pitch, has rarely wanted anything for himself or anyone else so badly, and sometimes, if things are particularly tense, Niall will reach over and tap Zayn's knuckles and Zayn will realize he's got a death grip on the edge of the bar. 

They're away to Spurs today, and fifteen minutes it, Zayn can tell Liam's not having one of his better days. He cuts a couple passes badly off target, overhits a corner, and one of the guys down the bar from them, probably only a few older than them, grumbles out a curse.

"Useless," he says to no one in particular. Zayn stiffens a little, and Louis leans his shoulder momentarily against his, a gentle reminder to relax. 

Five minutes later, Liam gets a perfect pass at the top of the 18 and clips a curler about a foot wide of the far post. A replay shows that he maybe made it harder on himself than he needed to, but Zayn figures that's a lot easier to say sitting on his ass in a pub than out on the pitch in front of twenty thousand fans. 

"For fucks sake!" the same guy from down the bar bursts out, glaring at the replay, "Does he not have eyes?"

"Jesus christ," Harry mutters from the other side of Louis, and Zayn's kind of glad he's not the only one getting irritated. 

Just before halftime, Liam's fellow central mid puts him through on net with a perfectly weighted pass, and Zayn thinks it's so exquisitely laid out that even he could probably finish it. 

Liam slices it agonizingly wide. 

"Useless!" 

Zayn studiously keeps his gaze forward, hears the telltale thud of a beer glass being slammed down on the bar. A steady torrent of insults and abuse follows, and he mostly manages to tune it out. 

But then the guy is saying something about Liam not being worth it, not being fit to wear the jersey, and Louis leans forward so he can look down the bar.

"Hey man, you mind keeping it down? Your commentary isn't adding much to the match."

"Have you seen the way Payne is playing?"

"Yeah, I've seen it," Louis says, his tone perceptibly colder, "But I don't need you telling me what he's worth."

"You mean what he's not worth?" 

"How about you shut it?" Niall cuts in, cool as ice and not even looking at the guy, and that's about the point that Zayn knows where this is going and thinks, good, great, bring it on. He's already on his feet by the time the guy gets up and walks over to Niall, who is still studiously not looking at him, calmly sipping his beer. 

"What'd you say to me?"

"You sure can talk shit, but I guess you still have trouble hearing the important stuff, huh?" Niall says. Zayn moves even before the guy gets his hand back to swing, and next thing he knows he's on the floor, jacket half-pulled over his head, someone swinging fists at him, and mostly missing. There are footsteps and shouting and abruptly he's released. Someone stumbles over him, and he recognizes the shoes as Harry's. Someone else sort of hauls him to his feet by the collar and he takes in the scene in front of him in snapshots--Niall and the guy from the bar holding each other in matching headlocks, Harry trying to break them up, Louis fighting against the bear-hug grasp of one of the pub employees. 

Zayn makes to dive back in, but someone's still holding him by the collar and he gets yanked back, none-too-gently. Steve, the bartender, is standing there, looking murderous.

"You. Stay," he says firmly. He's not exactly a huge guy or anything, but Zayn respects him, so he does as he's told. Steve dives into the fray, drags Harry out first and all but shoves him into Zayn's arms, repeats his command to stay, and then he's going back to break Niall away from the other. It takes a little longer, and Niall gets a few more punches in, but then Steve finally manages to separate them, and Niall sort of backs away, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, straightening his shirt. 

"You, out," Steve commands, pointing the other guy towards the door. A short pause, and then he goes. There's silence for three, four, five seconds after he leaves. Then people start moving back to their seats, go back to their beers and their conversation, and the four of them all sort of gingerly make their way back to the bar. Harry's beer has been spilled and a couple bowls of peanuts have been upended. Zayn shoots Steve a guilty look and starts sweeping the peanuts into his hand. Steve rolls his eyes, flicks a towel at him before he starts wiping up the spilled beer. 

"Cut that out," he chides. Zayn deposits the peanuts into a napkin, reaches for his beer again. 

"Sorry about that," he offers anyways. 

"Are you kidding me?" Steve responds, "Pub fights are good for business, man. No complaints from me."

He ducks down for another towel, resurfaces.

"Besides, I can't wait to find out what Liam says when he hears you guys got in a brawl over him."

-

They do tell Liam, mostly because it's kind of hard not to notice the bruises on Niall and Harry's faces. And if Liam was a typical footballer, he’d probably laugh and ask to hear all about it, tell them that chicks dig scars and all that. 

But Liam just has to be so fucking Liam about it and duck his head down and ask if they’re all okay and tell them they really didn’t have to do that because he’d feel like shit if they got hurt because of him and in the end he really was playing like shit and maybe he deserved it, and Zayn is really kind of endeared but he hates the fact that underneath it all is that undercurrent of inferiority that Liam’s never really been able to fully shake off. 

He hands Liam a beer, drapes an arm around his neck. 

“Liam,” he says seriously, “You do realize that this is how guys tell you they love you, right? And that, like, you kind of mean a lot to them?”

Liam chuckles a little, takes a swig of the beer Zayn gave him. 

“By going all caveman on a dickhead at the pub?”

Zayn pushes at the back of his head.

“Fuck you, ‘caveman,’” he laughs, “See if I ever throw a punch for you again.”

Liam blows him a kiss as he skitters away to go annoy Louis.

“You’d do it all over again in a second, Malik!”

Zayn smiles, mostly to himself.

Yeah. He would.


End file.
